, it's clear that america's servicemen and women will still be bearing a heavy load. and it's taxpayers paying a great deal of the bill. this is what the mission of protecting civilians in libya looks like today. british fighter jets high above the libyan desert scouring for targets. just outside a city, a column of libyan tanks threatening to fire. the british lock on, taking out one tank and then another with precision-guided missiles. six tanks destroyed in all. >> gadhafi has virtually no air defense left to him and a diminishing ability to command his forces on the ground. >> reporter: in the past 24 hours, of the nearly 100 strike missions in libya, more than half done by americans. the u.s. navy now has 12 ships in the mediterranean. in less than a week, firing 184 tomahawk cruise missiles. the cost? a whopping $258 million. the "uss kearsarge" is the largest of these ships. this crew has actually been under way for 210 days. only four days in port. in september, it was pakistani flood relief. in january, many of its marines sent to afghanistan. in february, st